


The Long Con

by JanuaryGrey (Jan3693)



Series: Someone We Used to Know [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Con Artists, Confidence Tricks, Gen, Harry Potter AU, Marauders AU, Not A Stand-Alone Fic, Pickpockets, Thief Sirius Black, check the series info if you're interested, siriusly check out the main story for context and background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27202552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jan3693/pseuds/JanuaryGrey
Summary: A side story from the main story in the series (Someone We Used to Know) that takes place during Sirius's "missing" years.
Series: Someone We Used to Know [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557685
Comments: 14
Kudos: 40





	1. Foundation Work

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little side story from the main fic in this series Someone We Used to Know, an AU that follows what happens when Sirius is expelled from Hogwarts following the Whomping Willow Prank on Snape. This fic won't make much sense if you don't at least read the first few chapters of the main fic. Check out the series info for links and more info.

Laverna Foley spots the boy five minutes after arriving at the party. 

Hanging on the baron’s arm, she watches the boy slip a heavy gold watch off a man’s wrist while handing him a drink. The watch disappears up the sleeve of the boy’s jacket. The mark turns away, none the wiser. 

She’s seen better. Hell, she _is_ better. Still, it’s impressive.

Bold too.

That begs the question: what is she going to do about it?

A pickpocket stealing billfolds and jewelry won’t upset her own plans. Unless he decides to target the enormous diamond gracing Laverna’s finger, or _her_ mark. Laverna has never been one to enjoy competition though, direct or indirect.

She briefly considers going to one of the many guards lurking around the edges of the room and alerting them. Muggle politicians take security _very_ seriously what with their “Cold War.” 

Really, if he’s this good, the boy ought to know better than to steal from a room that’s likely half full of spies and perhaps even an assassin or two. Of course, the same might be said of her. Their games are different, but with the baron’s military contracts the risks are much the same.

Sipping her champagne, Laverna decides to let it go. For now.

The next hour is all small talk, coyly showing off her new ring, and pretending to be absolutely besotted with a man who’s dull as dirt but richer than most small nations. She keeps an eye on the boy though. It’s a precaution against his wandering fingers, but she finds herself increasingly curious and impressed as time goes by and he doesn’t get caught.

There’s a moment she’s sure it will happen. He fumbles the lift of a woman’s bracelet, and the mark turns toward him, annoyance darkening toward outrage as her hand closes around the boy’s wrist. 

Then…

Then, the boy says something before the woman can shout. 

Then something changes.

The mark blinks. She suddenly looks confused, almost lost. The boy offers her a glass of champagne from the tray he carries. The woman releases his wrist to take it. 

The boy walks away, taking the bracelet with him. The woman lets him go. 

Laverna doesn’t know what to make of this. Especially when it happens two more times.

Of course, she can’t afford to devote all of her attention to this intriguing mystery. She has her own theft in progress, albeit one on a longer timeline and a grander scale. She has to play her part and play it convincingly for a few more months.

For a while she focuses on soothing the baron when some Italian ruffles his feathers. It’s a delicate process, one that requires careful attention. 

Even the best can make mistakes when they’re distracted.

Her fiancé’s ego is finally restored at the expense of a good chunk of Laverna’s patience. She desperately wants a drink. Two seconds later, a waiter extends a glass of champagne toward her like he’s read her mind. 

It’s not until her fingers are wrapping around the stem that Laverna realizes exactly who she’s taking the glass from.

He’s very young she realizes now that he’s close. She supposes he’s handsome too—that always helps—though he’s far too young and definitely too poor for her tastes. There’s intelligence in those grey eyes though, right alongside something starved and half-feral. 

_Fuck_. 

She realizes her own mistake and starts to yank her hand back. 

The boy whispers a vaguely familiar word as his fingers brush against hers.

Laverna’s head swims. She’s not dizzy, but every thought in her head feels like it’s being tossed into cocktail shaker and vigorously muddled. Questions tumble out of her brain as things reorder themselves. 

_Where am I? What am I doing? Who am I?_

By the time she answers those questions the boy is already halfway across the ballroom, leaving Laverna with a glass of exquisite bubbly in a hand that no longer sports the baron’s diamond engagement ring.

“That little bastard,” Laverna mutters under her breath. Anger and apprehension spike through her chest at the same time.

There’s an instinctual part of Laverna that’s suddenly terrified. It feels like she’s a little girl again, helpless and outcast and utterly lacking the very thing by which her family defines itself. 

She knows what this boy is. 

She knows exactly how he’s getting away with these outrageous little thefts. 

“What was that, darling?” the baron asks, half distracted by a canape.

“Nothing, my love,” Laverna assures him, even pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be right back, just need to powder my nose.”

She may be wary—and with good cause considering the mild confundus charm the boy just cast on her—but, Squib or not, Laverna hasn’t gotten where she is today by letting wizards push her around.


	2. The Approach

The boy abandons his serving tray as he leaves the ballroom. Laverna follows. 

He’s right-handed, she notes as she gets closer. He’s careless too. Arrogant. Convinced his magic will protect him against all of these poor, pitiful Muggles. 

Her parents were like that, her brothers too.

 _Wizards_. 

The word, not even said aloud, leaves a bitter tase on Laverna’s tongue.

Wizards never expect to feel powerless. 

And they never expect someone to be armed with anything other than a wand.

Laverna catches the boy by his right wrist, twisting it behind his back as she kicks the back of his knee. Using her own body weight, she shoves him against a beautifully wood-paneled wall. Before he can shout or struggle the little folding knife she keeps in her handbag is pressed against the side of his throat.

“Go for a wand, and I’ll slice your throat before you can touch it,” Laverna lies. She presses the knife harder against his skin.

She can’t see the boy’s face. It’s pressed too hard against the wall, but she feels the muscles in his back and shoulders go rigid.

“Are you an…Auror?” he asks. His Italian is clumsy and he stumbles over the last word with a distinct English accent. Curious.

“No,” Laverna says, switching to English as well, “but, you took something of mine. I want it back, and I’m not afraid to involve _all_ the authorities to get it back.” That’s a lie too.

The knife digs in just a little bit more. Any more and she’ll draw blood.

“All right, all right, I’m sorry, whatever it is you can have it back,” the boy says. 

He sounds sincere, and terrified. And very, very young. 

Laverna moves the knife away from his throat, but doesn’t let go of it as she quickly pats him down, looking for a wand. 

Only there isn’t one. 

Laverna frowns. Now that she thinks about it, she never saw him use a wand any of the times he cast a spell out in the ballroom.

A young, English wizard picking pockets in Rome and doing magic without a wand.

Curiouser and curiouser.

It’s a rare thing, but Laverna has spent her life on the fringes of the Magical world, out among the outcasts and the unwanted. She knows the signs. She’s seen them before.

She twists the boy’s wrist further, drawing a pained expletive from him. 

There it is.

A faint scar twisting across the boy’s palm. She’s seen it before on a few sad, resentful souls. Witches and wizards who had magic, and who’d done something terrible enough to have it taken away.

She lets the boy go and steps back.

He turns to face her, rubbing at his wrist, fingers curled to hide his palm like he knows exactly what she saw there. He’s glaring. He’s got a good face for glaring—stormy grey eyes, strong cheekbones, and dark, dramatic eyebrows. He’s still young enough that it looks a little petulant though. 

“If you’re not an Auror who are you?” the boy asks. He’s angry, but he’s also afraid. Laverna catches him eying the doors along the hallway, weighing his options, weighing her.

“Someone you stupidly stole from,” she replies. The knife is still in her hand though she won’t use it. She was never going to use it. Too much attention, too many consequences. The baron’s blushing, innocent fiancée can’t just slit some waiter’s throat in the middle of a politician’s party. 

The boy regards her for another long second then huffs a sigh. “What was it?” he asks. From a pocket inside his suit jacket, he pulls out a small velvet drawstring bag. He holds it tight to himself, and his glare sharpens. He’s not giving up his loot, not easily. Thankfully, Laverna has no interest in the rest of it, just her ring. She worked hard for that ring, and she’s already got a buyer lined up for it after she’s done with the baron.

“A diamond ring. Princess cut, _large_ , gold setting, flanked by six smaller stones on each side,” Laverna says. It’s a hideous ring but so deliciously expensive. 

The boy reaches into the bag, and his hand disappears too far inside. An extension charm, a cheap one, judging by the way the seams bulge as he digs through it. 

He pulls out four rings, finds the one Laverna described and tosses it to her. The others he drops back into the bag, which immediately disappears into his pocket again.

“Are you planning on telling anyone?” he asks. Those grey eyes flicker anxiously between Laverna and the doors. He seems uncertain about which way to run. He doesn’t know where the nearest exit is. Sloppy. 

No, not sloppy, _amateurish_. 

This boy barely knows what he’s doing. He’s a good pickpocket, but he’s probably used to lifting wallets off tourists not robbing the rich at fancy parties. If it weren’t for his magic he’d have been caught a dozen times over tonight. 

The magic is remarkable though. Wandless magic is common enough across Africa and the Middle East, but it’s a rare skill throughout most of the western world. A rare skill most people don’t think to look for or defend against. 

Possibilities nibble at the edges of Laverna’s mind.

“No, I’m not going to report you,” Laverna says. “I don’t want the attention any more than you do—Wizarding or Muggle.” He raises one of those dark eyebrows, curiosity piqued. 

Laverna smiles. There, she’s established a connection, a bit of rapport. 

“For future reference, you should avoid stealing from politicians,” she says, the voice of wisdom and experience, just shy of condescending. “You’re not bad, but magical law enforcement pays more attention to government Muggles. The important ones, that is.”

The boy frowns. His chin angles into a stubborn tilt, but uncertainty flashes in his eyes. Yes, he’s still new at this. 

“I needed money fast,” the boy says. It’s almost a confession. There’s desperation in his eyes and more than a little fear. 

“Then you should avoid jewelry,” Laverna tells him. “The exchange rate isn’t good. Goblins don’t want the Muggle stuff, and Muggle brokers won’t give you much because it’s usually too difficult to sell the pieces as is, so they usually have to take everything apart. Sometimes they even have to melt the gold and cut the stones, which dips into everyone’s profit margins, especially yours.” 

The boy grimaces.

He’s trouble, likely more than he’s worth. She should stay out of this. Go back to the baron and finish robbing him blind. 

Still.

It’s curiosity, not compassion that makes her do it.

She opens her little handbag, drops the knife inside and pulls out a pen and a little silver case of business cards. On the back of one she writes an address.

The boy takes it warily when she holds it out to him.

“It’s a fence I know here in Rome,” she says. “Show him the card and he’ll give you the best price you’re likely to find for whatever you’ve got in that bag.” 

He turns the card over and glances up at her after reading the name and phone number on the front. It’s her real name—well, as real of a name as she has anymore—not the one the baron or anyone else here knows her by.

Laverna is curious to see what, if anything, he’ll do with it.

The business card goes into the same pocket as the velvet bag. No thank you, no further apologies. The boy wants to run, but he seems wary of turning his back on Laverna, so, she makes it easy and leaves first. 

She needs to get back to the party anyway. The baron gets suspicious easily, and _she_ can’t charm him into complacency.


	3. Chapter 3

Three days after the party at the embassy, Laverna hears from her Roman fence. A boy sold him a small fortune in jewelry (for which he was paid significantly less than a small fortune, but more than he would have been if he hadn’t shown the card Laverna gave him).

For two weeks, that’s all she hears, and she expects that’s the end of the matter. A small, curious incident that nothing much comes from. She shrugs it off and stows away the nascent plans she’d been concocting. 

It might have been useful to have a wizard around, especially one young enough to mold and train properly, one who didn’t rely on a wand and who might not dismiss a Squib like her out of hand. Oh well, it’s no real loss. 

Her scam on the baron is almost complete and she expects to be gone in another month, long before her wedding day arrives.

Then, early one morning, the phone rings.

A man who is definitely not her fiancé grumbles in his sleep and tries to throw an arm over Laverna’s waist, but she pushes him off and hurries out of bed.

“Is this…is this Miss Foley?” A voice asks on the other end of the telephone line. The English accent is slurred, but not quite like the speaker is drunk. Few enough people know that name that Laverna is instantly attentive.

“Who is this?” She asks sharply. Anyone who calls her before dawn deserves to be answered sharply.

“I—the party…at the British Embassy…I stole your ring. You gave me the card with your phone number on it.”

For a moment Laverna wonders if she’s wrong. Maybe the boy is drunk. Good lord and Merlin, he better not be calling her for _that_ reason. The boy looked like he was still in his teens. 

Before she can sternly reprimand him or hang up, the boy coughs. It sounds wet and he wheezes afterward. “I need help,” he says.

Let it be known: Laverna Foley does not help people. No one helped her growing up, and she’s happy to return that indifference to all the wide world. 

Laverna does not help people, but sometimes she does collect favors.

She kicks out the man who is not her fiancé, dresses swiftly, pockets a pistol and her little knife, and takes the car the baron gave her to the outskirts of Rome. She smokes a cigarette as she drives slowly, peering down narrow alleys and into recessed doorways, contemplating what she’ll do if she actually finds the boy.

She finds him before she makes any decisions. He’s slumped against a crumbling wall, and for a moment she thinks he might already be dead. He blinks in the light of her headlamps though. Laverna sighs before flicking away the cigarette butt and climbing out of the car.

The boy is a mess, more hollow-eyed and starved looking than just a few weeks ago, and now he’s pale, dirty, and bleeding quite a lot.

The wound is on his back and it’s left long smears against the wall as he slid to the ground.

“I tried to heal it,” he mumbles as she turns him around to get a look at the damage. Laverna hates blood. She’s not disturbed or afraid of it, but she hates it. It’s sticky and grotesquely warm. It leaves stains and causes too much trouble.

“I tried to heal it,” the boy says again, though he probably doesn’t even know he’s repeating himself. “I’m not…not very good at healing spells though.”

The wound itself is long, running from his left shoulder blade all the way to his right hip, but it’s shallow. Nothing important was cut or damaged. Even a Muggle would recover just fine with stitches and some antibiotics. Except…Through the blood and his torn shirt, Laverna can see a greyish-green tint to the edges of the torn skin.

“Was this a spell?” Laverna asks.

The boy shakes his head. He lifts his head with effort, his eyes are exhausted, but the smile on his lips is wry and knowing, like he’s just told a joke she doesn’t understand. “Knife,” he says. 

Wizards, they never expect something so simple until it’s too late. Not that this wound was caused by any simple knife.

“Well, it was a cursed blade then.” Laverna removes her hands and lets him slump back against the wall with a pained hiss. 

He looks up at her, beseechingly, and is greeted by cold indifference. There’s no goodness in her heart, not enough for her to save his life. Not on principle at least.

“Please…” the boy whispers. 

Laverna bends until she can look him straight in the eye, hers are brown and cold as a tundra, his are grey and wet with fear and pain. He doesn’t want to die, not here, not so far from home, from his friends. 

He’s so alone. He doesn’t want to die that way.

“You’ll owe me,” Laverna tells him. “For your life, and for all the time and money it’s going to take to fix you.”

It’s an ultimatum. A trap. The boy knows it. 

He nods. 

Laverna helps him to the car. She knows a few talented but unscrupulous healers. They’re not cheap, but she thinks of it as an investment.


	4. Chapter 4

Five weeks before Laverna Foley reluctantly rescues a boy off the streets of Rome, a witch named Camila finds a teenaged boy on the doorstep of her cottage in the south of Spain. He’s thin and ragged and tired, and his grey eyes are too old by far. Camila brings him inside and feeds him.

His Spanish is terrible and his Arabic nonexistent, but by the end of breakfast, Camila has pieced together enough to understand why he’s sought her out. 

He’s looking for a teacher. 

No one has come to Camila asking for her knowledge in almost forty years. These days, even those who can trace their lineage back to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania send their children off to schools with wands and textbooks, not to old women in the countryside.

This boy is older than her previous students have been, and the language barrier will be a problem, but that’s not what makes Camila hesitate. She is a talented witch, one of the last great wandless spellcasters in Europe, but that’s not her true gift. 

Camila senses things. In the leaves at the bottom of a teacup, in the entrails of birds, in the very cracks of the universe. She would never call herself a prophetess or even a seer. She just _knows_ things sometimes. She knows something now, looking at this eager, half-starved boy. 

_“Show me your hands,”_ she says. He doesn’t understand. She gestures to her hands and then to his, holding her own withered palms out as an example. 

He hesitates. Fear. Shame. Bitter, simmering anger. 

Camila repeats her gestures.

Reluctantly, he offers her his hands.

There are marks carved into his palms. They cut across the lines of his head, his heart, his life, his fate. They cut across everything.

But that’s not what makes Camila hesitate.

Beneath those faint but terrible scars, she reads a life filled with potential. The marks cruelly carved into his skin interrupt everything, but they change nothing. They take away nothing. 

This boy is important. The universe has a role for him to play.

Camila sighs. She is an old, old woman. She moves through this world slowly, carefully. This boy could probably benefit from slowness and caution. If he stays here with her in the quiet countryside, he will learn much and perhaps even find a sense of peace. 

That is not what his hands have been built for.

If one is lucky, peace can sometimes be found at the end of greatness, but never at the beginning of it.

Camila shakes her head. 

The boy begs. She understands few of the words, but she comprehends the pleas, the tears, and finally the anger all too fluently. 

She offers him all she can: food and a rumor. The name of a man she’s heard of and where he might possibly be found.

*

Two weeks after Camila reluctantly turns away a potential student, a wizard named Lorenzo finds the same teenaged boy on the doorstep of his luxurious townhouse in Rome. He’s thin and ragged and tired, but his grey eyes are sharp and hungry. Lorenzo wrinkles his nose and tells the beggar to go away. He’s not a charity.

The boy’s Italian is clumsy, but Lorenzo is fluent in many languages, including those the boy does speak.

“Please,” the boy says, “I heard you were a teacher? That you teach wandless magic?”

“I do,” Lorenzo replies, looking the boy up and down. He’s seen this sort before, likely cast out by his family after failing to show any signs of magic, desperate to earn his way back. “My classes are very effective, but they are also _expensive._ ”

The boy tenses. 

“How much?”

The figure Lorenzo names makes the boy’s eyes go wide. He swallows. Lorenzo expects him to beg or slink away hopelessly. Instead, he draws himself up, spine straightening, mouth firm. It’s enough to make Lorenzo curious, but not enough to make him sympathetic.

“Give me a week,” the boy says. “I’ll get you the money.”

Lorenzo sniffs dismissively and shuts the door in the boy’s face.

Not even four days later, the boy is back on Lorenzo’s doorstep. He’s a little cleaner this time, but still thin and ragged. Before Lorenzo can tell him to go away again, the boy shoves a bag heavy with gold and silver coins into his hands. 

“When do we start?” the boy asks. The hunger in his grey eyes is ravenous. 

Lorenzo’s honestly impressed. 

It’s a pity when, two and a half weeks later Lorenzo concludes he has to kill the boy. 

Lorenzo is even more impressed—and very, very angry—when he fails.


	5. Chapter 5

By necessity, there’s a certain amount of flexibility built into every confidence trick, especially long cons. Not even the best grifter in the world can predict every variable, every possible cock-up the universe might throw their way. Laverna builds her cons well, but the sudden addition of a teenage boy might be too much to work around even for her. 

Assuming, of course, that the boy in question survives the night.

At the moment he’s unconscious on the sofa in Laverna’s hotel suite, a healer bent over him whispering spells. The healer’s hands shake. A side effect of the drinking problem that led to her dismissal from more reputable work. She’s making a mess of things, but it’s an effective mess.

Beneath her trembling wand, flesh knits together, slowly, sloppily, crookedly.

“He’ll live?” Laverna asks. She’s standing in the doorway separating the suite’s bedroom and sitting room, a very full glass of wine dangles temptingly from her fingers.

The healer eyes Laverna’s wine as she finishes her spell. She nods, eyes still on the wine. 

“He’ll be in pain for a while, and there will be a scar, but he’ll live.”

He’ll live, and he’ll be deep in Laverna’s debt for that.

In the long run, she’s sure that will be a boon, but in the near future she foresees it causing all sorts of problems. 

First things first though. 

She sips her wine. The healer stares with obscene longing. “Make sure you clean up, then join me for a drink,” Laverna instructs.

Bloodshot eyes fixate on the glass. The healer nods and does as asked. Good. Laverna hates cleaning bloodstains the Muggle way.

She grabs the bottle and fills a generous second glass. It’s a waste of good wine on bad company, but it pays to be generous to someone so useful, especially when that someone is also usefully chatty.

“Thank you for saving him,” Laverna says. There’s a soft tremble to her voice. If the healer misses that affectation there’s a matching dampness shining in Laverna’s eyes. She dabs at it with a tissue, intentionally letting it muss her mascara. 

Only after she’s sure her show has been noted does she hand the healer a glass of sangiovese.

The healer drains half of it in one go then sighs happily and finally remembers a shred of manners. “Of course,” she says. “I’m glad I got here in time.”

Laverna smiles, letting it tremble just enough. A strong woman trying not to show affection. A strong woman trying not to show weakness. 

Even drunks are plagued by curiosity.

“Is he your…” She hesitates. She looks between Laverna and the boy, trying to calculate ages and potential relationships. Too young to be Laverna’s lover, too old to be her son.

“My nephew,” Laverna supplies. 

She tops off the healer’s glass. There’s another bottle open and waiting in the wings. 

She sighs, forlornly, and lets her gaze soften as she glances back over at the boy still out cold on her sofa. “That boy, I have no idea what terrible sort of trouble he’s gotten himself into this time.”

The healer drinks deeply. 

She glances at the boy on the sofa, purses her lips, and drinks again. Deeper than before.

Laverna pours more wine and waits. 

Most of the second bottle is gone before Laverna gets to the meat of the matter.

The healer is thoroughly drunk now, but not _too_ drunk. Alcoholics are a delicate balance, but Laverna’s mother gave her plenty of practice. 

The healer nods, sympathetically.

“I’m so grateful you were able to save him,” Laverna simpers. Another pour of blood red wine. “Have you ever seen a wound like that before?”

The healer nods. She’s just drunk enough to be easily flattered, too drunk to be cautious, and not quite drunk enough to be insensible.

Laverna hides a smile around the rim of her wine glass. She’s measured well.

“Two years ago, at the hospital…” the healer says. She sounds genuinely mournful. “The girl was only thirteen…she didn’t make it.”

No wonder the woman drinks. 

“Poor little witch,” Laverna clucks.

“No,” the healer says, “not a witch. The girl was a squib.”

Laverna’s face shows no surprise. It shows no fury. No sorrow. No empathy. If any of those emotions try to blossom beneath her façade, she tears them out before they can grow roots.

“Tell me more,” she orders the healer as she pours the last of the wine into the other woman’s glass.

This isn’t personal. Not for her. 

It’s just good business to know what sort of trouble you’re getting yourself into.


End file.
